Credit: Stan Kegel
An older woman loved to visit her children and grandchildren, but they were spread all across the country, and she was afraid of flying. She had a deathly fear that someone on the plane might be carrying a bomb. One of her children was an actuary and thought he might allay his mother's fears by computing the odds of this happening. Grandma agreed to at least listen, and one afternoon came into his office.
"So what are the odds of one person carrying a bomb onto a plane?" she asked.
"About one in five hundred thousand," the actuary son replied.
His mother considered this, and then asked,
"And what are the odds of two people carrying bombs on the same plane?"
Doing some quick calculations, he answered, "About one in five billion."
After this meeting, Grandma seemed to lose her fear of flying and spent many happy years traveling and visiting her family. On one visit with her actuary son, he said to her,
"Computing those odds really seemed to do the trick for you."
"Yes," she replied, "Now whenever I fly I always carry a bomb on the plane with me."
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